“Breaking Bad” has not set a premiere date, but will begin at some point in July, airing on Sundays on AMC.
“The Newsroom”
What makes “The Newsroom,” which is a brand-new, unproven show, a must-watch this summer? Two words: Aaron Sorkin. The “West Wing” creator and “The Social Network” scribe created this drama about a cable news anchor (Jeff Daniels) who must do damage control after an outburst and keep his show running. If Aaron Sorkin isn’t enough for you, here’s one more word: HBO. Okay, that’s more of an acronym.
“The Newsroom” premieres Sunday, June 24 at 10PM on HBO.
“Futurama”
“Futurama” has been around a long time, but like a fine wine, it has only gotten better with age and goes down better with a dash of Torgo’s Executive Powder. It seems that “Futurama” has seen many deaths and rebirths at the hands of television executives, but with a home (and contract) at Comedy Central, it should be around for at least another year. And that’s a reason for a Zoidberg-esque “hooraaaay!”
“Futurama” premieres Wednesday, June 20 at 10PM on Comedy Central.
“Louie”
Created by and starring comedian Louis C.K., “Louie” has quietly become one of the best shows on television, and perhaps the single best comedy. A show that takes on the absurdity of life and relays it to us as only Louis C.K. can, “Louie” is a prime example of the fine work that the FX network is doing in selecting their talent for comedy shows. “Wilfred” gets a nod here as well, and will air on the same night. Consider them required watching. They’re that good.
“Louie” premieres Thursday, June 28 at 10:30PM (“Wilfred” airs at 10PM).
Honorable Mentions:
“Political Animals”
This new Washington-based political drama will be a short one–there will only be six episodes in this miniseries run–but it could pack a major punch. The show has pulled together a cast that includes Sigourney Weaver, Carla Gugino, Ellen Burstyn, Adrian Pasdar and James Wolk, all of whom have the talent to make this show a winner. Even if the script supports them just a little, we could see fireworks.
“Political Animals” premieres Sunday, July 15 at 10PM on USA.
“Snooki JWOWW”
Admit it. You’re at least a little bit curious as to what will happen on this “Jersey Shore” spinoff that follows besties Snooki and JWOWW as they get up to their usual antics (read: drink a lot and get in fights while sporting irrational cleavage). That curiosity, and the chance to collectively shake our heads even more at the fact that Snooki is going to be a mother, should turn at least a few eyes in the direction of this train wre–I mean, TV show.
“Snooki JWOWW” premieres Thursday, June 21 at 10PM on MTV.
“Falling Skies”
The first season of “Falling Skies,” which aired last summer, was a bit uneven. There were points of actual excitement, but in general the characters acted so brainless and so oblivious to the solutions to the alien threat in front of them that it was a bit frustrating to watch. It took an 8-year-old kid to think up the idea to make bullets out of the super-strong metal from the alien robots, so that gives you an idea of what we’re dealing with.
But, there’s potential here for a pretty good show, and while there are weak spots in the cast, there are strong ones as well. You might watch to catch up on season one and give “Falling Skies” a try this summer.
“Falling Skies” premieres Sunday, June 17 at 9PM on TNT.
Cary NC – This week in our S.T.E.M. video series, we show a woman who is paralyzed controlling a robotic arm with nothing but her thoughts. Kids with an interest in science will find this video more inspiring than Futurama.
Controlling a Robot with Your Thoughts
It sounds like science fiction: controlling a robot with nothing by your thoughts. But that’s the big buzz this week, in a video that shows Cathy Hutchinson, who is paralyzed in all four limbs, controlling a robotic arm with her thoughts to get a sip of her morning coffee.
The research was done at Brown University and publish in the journal Nature.
The Science
Leigh Hochberg, Director of the BrainGate clinical study at Brown, described three components of a brain-to-robot-arm system:
Sensor
Decoder
Assistive Device (robot arm)
The sensor, which is implanted in the motor cortex at the top of the brain, connects through a wire to a computer. The computer “decodes” the electrical impulses of the motor cortex and sends instructions to the robot arm.
Cathy, who has been paralyzed for fifteen years, thinks about grabbing the tumbler of coffee. She literally moves the robot arm with her thoughts.
Future studies may focus on developing a wireless system and refining the complex movements of robotic hand, elbow and shoulder to be more nuanced and life-like.
Video: Paralyzed Woman Moves Robot with Her Mind
Of course, this video is more than a technology demo – it’s a profound human interest story. Cathy’s smile, getting herself a sip of coffee for the first time in 15 years, and the reaction of the scientists, speak to the deep human desire for dignity.
For ladies and gentlemen of a certain age, the library is changing too fast. For kids, it’s changing too slow. University students are caught in the middle. Their library experience must be like surfing: riding the edge of a moving wave, never quite cresting, never quite crashing. Such a state has to be thrilling but ultimately exhausting.
One popular image of the library of the future comes from the cartoon Futurama. The temporally misplaced character from our own time, Fry, enters Mars University’s Wong Library with his friends. It contains the largest collection of literature in the universe. Zoom in on two CDs, one labeled “Fiction” and the other “Non-fiction.”
In many ways, the library of today looks much the same as the library of yesteryear. The card catalogues may be consigned to a basement storage area and the tables where they used to stand are studded with computers. But otherwise there are carrels and stacks, stairs and information desk, patrons and librarians.
Transition is underway: from a place where you go to get information to a place you go to create; and from a place you go to create to a service you use.
From kids to adults
Sarah Houghton, the acting director of the San Rafael Public Library in California and the blogger behind Librarian in Black, said the little kids who come into her library expect three things.
“Every screen is a touch screen,” she told Ars, “and when it’s not they get confused as hell. Kids expect instant delivery of everything. If you can’t get it right that second, it doesn’t exist. When you tell them that a thing they want doesn’t exist digitally, that it’s a physical thing and that’s it, it blows their mind. If there is some book they need to write a report on, say, Mayan culture, and it’s not online, they get mad.
“I’ve encountered people in their mid-late 20s who have that same expectation.”
Although many libraries are slow to change, the expectations of today’s children make that change a certainty.
From books to tools
One of the biggest changes university libraries have seen in recent years is in the number and types of tools available to find information.
“With enhanced catalogues, digital surrogates, linked databases, and the hardware to bring all of these things to the fingertips of a library user, a library user becomes a walking catalogue.”
“When libraries got rid of their physical card catalogs in favor of online catalogs, plenty of folks were worried that the experience of finding things, especially by physically browsing library stacks, would be diminished, ” Chris Bourg, Associate University Librarian at Stanford, told Ars. “(But) our catalog SearchWorks, has a feature which allows users to virtually browse the book covers of related items across 17 different campus libraries at once – something that would obviously be impossible to do physically.”
Daryl Green believes recall is one of the great improvements in the technological profile of the modern university library. Green is a rare books librarian at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland and an author of the collection’s excellent Echoes from the Vault blog.
“I think that emerging technologies will only make recall quicker in catalogues and databases,” he told Ars. “A reader can trace a foot-noted lead with lightning-fast speed and determine whether the citation they’re following is something that requires their attention or not within a minute of seeing a footnote. Previously, this crucial step in the research process (following the breadcrumbs) was the most labor intensive, but with enhanced catalogues, digital surrogates, linked databases, and, most importantly, the hardware to bring all of these things to the fingertips of a library user, a library user becomes a walking catalogue.”
Another change librarians have noted is the university library’s ongoing change to a multiuse space.
“We think of the library as a hybrid environment that consists of physical spaces, people, and objects; as well as a digital entity that provides online access to digital resources, services and tools,” Bourg said about Stanford’s libraries. “But the truth is that technology has simply provided libraries with new ways to fulfill our age-old mission of collecting, preserving, organizing and providing meaningful access to information in support of teaching and research.”
Green agrees.
“The nature of the academic library has always been to provide a platform for research, study, social activity, and discovery,” he said. “I think, at its heart, the nature of the library will never really change, but the services that we provide and the role that we play in a student’s or researcher’s life will constantly shift.”
From building to service
Another denizen of the Stanford Library is Elijah Meeks. Not a librarian per se, Meeks is a “digital humanities specialist,” most recently the co-creator of the interactive ORBIS atlas of Roman history. He sees the university libraries in the future behaving like Google.
“I see libraries of the future, those that survive, as acting like high-tech services companies, mini Googles focused on a particular demographic and physical footprint. Like Google providing, as best it can, a massive variety of services, I see the university library doing the same. This Google Model would require more than the cool Google offices and transparent walls (we have some of those in some of our buildings). Instead, it needs small, agile teams focused on doing really good work and recognizing the value created by supporting a broad constituency.”
Steven Gass, Associate Director for Research and Instructional Services at MIT, sees the economics of the university library as militating toward a consolidation of collections. Satellites and branches have been closed all over the country and Gass sees the future of the university library as one of continuing consolidation of physical collections but mitigated with innovations like “embedded librarians.” These are librarians who live out in the different departments, labs, and research centers of a university, responding to the specific needs of their scholars and students.
“Their job,” he told Ars “is to know what those are doing and be proactive and push out relevant material.”
The most extraordinary example of this concierge function may be the Welch Medical Library at Johns Hopkins. This library closed its physical doors to patrons at the first of the year. Patrons can download articles and other materials online or use its embedded librarians to access information, including books.
An important role that librarians are going to need to play, according to Gass, is that of online credibility coach. By and large, people know, or learn, often osmotically, what constitutes a credible source in a book. It is a safe bet that a book on Chaucer published by Oxford University Press is going to be more reliable than one published by Hustler. But how to do the same for material that is native to the Web?
“It is a shared goal among colleagues nationwide to promote good information learning skills,” said Gass, “how to identify quality information, to instill new academics with how to think about information, about its quality, to teach the ‘tricks of the trade,’ so to speak, in assessing accuracy.”
From the capital to the borderlands
This transition time is one of great opportunity for those involved in libraries, but all transitions, all borders and verges, are places of great vulnerability as well. Grand changes are possible here, but so are operatic failures. The future seems promising. It’s the present that worries some librarians.
“The myth that the information scholars need for research and teaching is, or soon will be available for free online is a dangerous one,” said Bourg, “especially when it is used as an excuse to cut funding to libraries. Right now libraries face enormous but exciting challenges in maintaining print collections and services where they are still necessary, while simultaneously developing strategies for collecting, preserving, organizing, and providing access to digital objects. I fear that if libraries across the nation don’t get the resources we collectively need to meet these challenges that we may be at risk of losing big chunks of our cultural record because of lack of funding for digital collecting and preservation. “
If there is one thing that all librarians worried about, it was this: the de-funding of libraries. It has happened from the university research libraries all the way down to the neighborhood libraries that set expectations students bring when going to college.
Houghton traveled to Denmark last summer and visited the public library in a small, poor town.
“Their library was five times bigger than mine,” she said, “It had better computer technology, better everything.” The reason for that was simple, she said.
A few weeks ago, Becca Jones stole our hearts with her illustrations of Fry and Leela’s imaginary kids. Now she’s working her way through all the Futurama pairings (and three-person joinings), coming up with a full cast of kiddie characters.
Jones appears to be including any sets of characters who’ve done the nasty in Futurama‘s pasty. She’s also made a slight adjustment to Fry and Leela’s son (whom Reddit has dubbed “Yancy Bending Fry”), giving him a tentacle arm beneath his dad’s oversized jacket. The Kif/Leela/Amy kids have already been born, and here Jones has imagined them all grown up. As for the Fry/Amazonian woman, after the “Death by Snu-Snu” incident, I would be surprised if she never turned up in the series.
As a change of pace, I was the guest rogue on this week’s episode of The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe. We covered a lot of ground, from Futurama heads to asteroid mining to Mayans… and I have an abysmal record at the Science or Fiction segment when I’m on the show, so you can hold your breath in anticipation to see if I finally get one right, or once again go down in flames. I’ll note, obviously, that I always get it right when I listen to the show at home.
And nothing says love like Rebecca promising she’d freeze my head. Such a romantic.
Ross is the ultimate example of Friend Zone success. Over the show’s ten seasons, a variety of hurdles keep the two from becoming more than just friends. However, despite a string of important relationships, Ross just can’t seem to get Rachel out of his head. Though they dated for about a year (and even got married), things take a turn when Ross thinks the two are “on a break.” Finally that lucky series finale rolled around and the two found eternal happiness that is oh so common in the world of television.
Fanart Friday returns, celebrating really good news. Last week, we delivered on our promise of a “Guys with Glasses Edition,” and you loved it! Originally, this week’s theme was “twins,” but the sudden (albeit unsurprising) announcement of Toonami’s return (along with the most recent Natestalgia) has put me in a more nostalgic mood than normal.
So bearing that in mind, we’re gonna take a trip down memory lane, with fanart of some of your favorite titles from Toonami’s Midnight Run and Adult Swim. Unfortunately, classics like Voltron, Transformers, ThunderCats and G Gundam don’t make the cut, as they only aired on Toonami’s afternoon block, but you’ll see them here in a future installment! For now, though, dim the lights, turn on some drum-and-bass, and check out some fanart from Toonami’s best!
Even the late-night version of Outlaw Star kept some things edited. Not to say that it was a particularly dirty show, but it needed a fair amount of trimming so your mom didn’t wander in on you watching those devil porno cartoons.
Kiyone is easily my favorite character from Tenchi Muyo. I wholly identify with having to work with people who are hell-bent on “accidentally” making your day as difficult as possible through their sheer stupidity. Thank God those days are over.
Wow! It’s awesome to see some Cowboy Bebop art that doesn’t put Ed and Ein front and center (not that I don’t love them), but instead focuses on the six or seven actual “story” episodes. Bebop was 100% proof that good characters are more important than any semblance of an actual plot, because when it came time to actually tell a story, you were invested.
This piece from Gundam 0080 immediately stood out for how sad it was. 0080 was easily one of the most emotional anime ever aired on Cartoon Network–when I saw they were airing this, I was honestly wondering if Now and Then, Here and There or Grave of the Fireflies would show up on Adult Swim.
I may not have been a big fan, but holy crap was Wolf’s Rain popular. Literally, the only thing I can remember is that it was about furries people who changed into wolves… I think. And maybe Kate Beckinsale (3) made an appearance.
FLCL was only like six episodes long, and got played and replayed over and over again. How much you wanna bet that GAINAX’s other high-energy series, Gurren-Lagann, eventually gets a run on the new Toonami?
Oh look, DBZ fanart that looks similar to actual art from the series. Not too exciting, right? What is exciting is that it’s Dragonball Z fanart that was made pixel-by-pixel in MS Paint!
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex is the perfect series to hook people who aren’t into anime. No sweatdrops, no goofy expressions, not even particularly cartoony art–just solid characters and a tense, well-told story.
Samurai Champloo was a massive hit with a great soundtrack thanks to the late DJ/producer/record store owner Nujabes, who was in my opinion the perfect person for the job.
TRIGUN is a great anime, but it deviates so far from the manga that it’s kind of hard to watch after a certain point. I love the show, but it goes through major mood swings–it’s goofy and hyper one minute, then incredibly dark and depressing the next. I have to be in a very specific mood to want to watch it.
Okay, so there was a long period of time where Adult Swim was barely showing any anime, and instead you’d get like three hours’ worth of Futurama. I’m fine with that–Futurama is by and far one of the best animated shows ever made.
So Light Yagami has a noble goal: save the world from itself. The current order isn’t doing anything to protect the people, so they need to be united under a strong leader who will do whatever it takes, including mass murder and betraying everybody who cares about him, to get the job done. That sounds like a villain, right? Right?
SO WHY IN THE HELL DOES EVERYBODY CONSIDER LELOUCH A HERO?! Code Geass was about two things: hilariously out-of-place fanservice and Lelouch’s calculating vengeance-at-all-costs trip through the ruined, Britannia-conquered Japan.
Y’know what I miss? The old Ichigo. The one who cared about his friends beyond needing to protect them, the one who actually gave his family the time of day. He turned from a pretty cool guy to somebody whose power had gone to his head, who divided others into “people to protect” and “people to fight.”
God, I love Yu Yu Hakusho. Y’know, I was planning on buying the whole series DVD by DVD, until I stopped somewhere around the start of the Dark Tournament. When the “season sets” came out years later, I bought it all in one go for the cost of about 2-3 of those single DVDs.
Here’s the one that started it all. Back when Toonami was a brand-new afternoon block of action cartoons and anime, you could watch Gundam Wing as part of the afternoon lineup, with teenage terrorists who really liked to say “darn” and “heck” a lot… or you could tune in later for a much more intense experience in the Midnight Run. Uncut Gundam Wing paved the way for so much more anime to be shown on TV.
I remember when The Big O started airing, people were asking me whether it was American- or Japanese-animated. I can understand their confusion–The Big O drew heavy influence from the film-noir style of animation in Batman: The Animated Series. Basically, as a combination of two of my favorite things ever (Batman: The Animated Series and Giant Robo: The Day the Earth Stood Still), I was really happy to see it reach a wider audience.
I’ve always been a bigger fan of Lupin III‘s supporting cast (mainly Fujiko) than of Lupin himself. I was always a little sad that this series and Case Closed (Detective Conan) kind of bombed over here–they’re good shows that just didn’t work overseas.
While I’ve always liked the manga for Inuyasha, I’ve never particularly liked the anime. I decided to give it a shot again recently, and y’know what? It wasn’t that bad. It might be because it’s the first handful of episodes, or it might just be the series’ really good soundtrack, but Inuyasha pleasantly surprised me. Let’s see how I feel when I finish up all seven seasons… I’m not really looking forward to that.
What can I say about Fullmetal Alchemist (or its manga-accurate follow-up Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood) that I haven’t already said? The first anime’s ending wasn’t bad per se, it was just drastically different from what fans were expecting. Wait, I’ve said that one before?
But out of all the different animated shows that Adult Swim has featured, what is my all-time favorite?
You have no idea how much I appreciate the long breaks that Metalocalypse goes on. In season-long dozen-episode bursts every other year, I love the combination of goofy comedy and great music, but if it just kept going on season after season like so many other shows, I’d get sick of it.
And that’s all for this week, folks! What are your favorite Adult Swim and Toonami Midnight Run titles? I know that there’s a long list of shows that didn’t make the cut this time, but sound off in the comments, let us know which favorites didn’t show up! As always, your art is welcome here, no matter what it is–send it on over to me in a PM and I’ll make sure it shows up in a future installment!
Also, be sure to tune in next week, when, uh… actually, I won’t be here next week, I’ll be at FanimeCon! Our very own Scott Green–no stranger to fanart features himself–will be taking over Fanart Friday for next week, so be sure to swing by and check it out! Thanks for being with us for this installment of Fanart Friday–I’ll see all of you in two weeks!
With a dog at his heels and a supplicant offering him a cup of Tim Horton’s coffee, Sutherland’s Harper looks like something between a Roman emperor and Hedonism Bot from the television show Futurama.
The painting is currently displayed at the Kingston Library as part of an art competition until the end of the month. Chief Librarian Patricia Enright told the Canadian Press that some people find the portrait disrespectful, while others enjoy seeing it on display.
Gallery owner Mary Sue Rankin, meanwhile, says the painting is meant to suggest that Harper is not living up to his promises as prime minister.
Reaction across Canada has been swift, and sarcastic. Liberal MP Scott Brison told CBC that this is “one Conservative coverup” that we need, while Prime Minister’s Office spokesman Andrew MacDougall Tweeted as follows:
On the Sutherland painting: we’re not impressed. Everyone knows the PM is a cat person.
— Andrew MacDougall (@PMO_MacDougall) May 18, 2012
There’s no word yet from the prime minister himself, but it’s hard to believe he’ll ever look at a cup of Tim Horton’s coffee the same way.
Specs Age 45 Accomplishments Head writer and executive producer of Futurama, which premieres on Comedy Central on June 20 at 10 p.m.; former writer on The Simpsons Base Los Angeles
What’s the first information you consume in the morning?
I guess it would be the time and how late I am for work.
What do you read or watch or listen to at the breakfast table?
I watch my 5-year-old daughter spilling cereal on her face.
What occupies your mind in the car?
My big thing now is books on tape—actually books on download—because I have this long commute like everybody in L.A., and I was wasting it listening to the five-minute news cycle. So suddenly, I actually listen to books on tape coming and going. If there’s one key change in my information diet, it’s audio books.
Are you a TV junkie or on an airtime-restricted diet?
When I do watch TV, it’s pre-recorded and DVRed. We have a joke on Futurama here and there about other TV shows, but I guess just because of the epic nature of our sci-fi stories, we tend to reference movies.
What do you consume on television? Game of Thrones is my thing right now. I’ve been given all the books as a birthday present, but I don’t want to read them because I don’t want to ruin the show.
What do you bite into on the way home?
I just started listening to a science-fiction trilogy—Peter Hamilton’s Void Trilogy—and I just finished Stephen King’s JFK book 11/22/63. I quite enjoyed it, even though it felt like sci-fi for people who don’t read sci-fi.
What tech from Futurama would you most like to see show up in the real world?
I just read about someone starting a company that claims to build transport tubes that can send you around the world in a tube like a letter in an old ’50s office building. I think that would be cool—to just shoot over to Japan for a day in a tube.
Give us the skinny on your favorite app.
Oh, here’s a good one: the Samsung TV remote app I downloaded, which I can use as a remote for my TV from anywhere in the house. So I can change the volume and stuff from another room and annoy people. It’s one I was waiting for because the smartphone seems to be putting devices out of commission one by one, and the remote control just seemed ripe for that. My flashlight is gone now.
With such a bloated media universe, how do you cut out the fat?
I’m not good at cutting out the fat, but my schedule makes it a moot point. I have to be in a room talking to the writers all day, every day. My brain doesn’t have the capability to do that while reading online. I do that every now and then, but then I see people looking at me saying, “Why aren’t we working?” It’s peer pressure, honestly.
Specs Age 45 Accomplishments Head writer and executive producer of Futurama, which premieres on Comedy Central on June 20 at 10 p.m.; former writer on The Simpsons Base Los Angeles
What’s the first information you consume in the morning?
I guess it would be the time and how late I am for work.
What do you read or watch or listen to at the breakfast table?
I watch my 5-year-old daughter spilling cereal on her face.
What occupies your mind in the car?
My big thing now is books on tape—actually books on download—because I have this long commute like everybody in L.A., and I was wasting it listening to the five-minute news cycle. So suddenly, I actually listen to books on tape coming and going. If there’s one key change in my information diet, it’s audio books.
Are you a TV junkie or on an airtime-restricted diet?
When I do watch TV, it’s pre-recorded and DVRed. We have a joke on Futurama here and there about other TV shows, but I guess just because of the epic nature of our sci-fi stories, we tend to reference movies.
What do you consume on television? Game of Thrones is my thing right now. I’ve been given all the books as a birthday present, but I don’t want to read them because I don’t want to ruin the show.
What do you bite into on the way home?
I just started listening to a science-fiction trilogy—Peter Hamilton’s Void Trilogy—and I just finished Stephen King’s JFK book 11/22/63. I quite enjoyed it, even though it felt like sci-fi for people who don’t read sci-fi.
What tech from Futurama would you most like to see show up in the real world?
I just read about someone starting a company that claims to build transport tubes that can send you around the world in a tube like a letter in an old ’50s office building. I think that would be cool—to just shoot over to Japan for a day in a tube.
Give us the skinny on your favorite app.
Oh, here’s a good one: the Samsung TV remote app I downloaded, which I can use as a remote for my TV from anywhere in the house. So I can change the volume and stuff from another room and annoy people. It’s one I was waiting for because the smartphone seems to be putting devices out of commission one by one, and the remote control just seemed ripe for that. My flashlight is gone now.
With such a bloated media universe, how do you cut out the fat?
I’m not good at cutting out the fat, but my schedule makes it a moot point. I have to be in a room talking to the writers all day, every day. My brain doesn’t have the capability to do that while reading online. I do that every now and then, but then I see people looking at me saying, “Why aren’t we working?” It’s peer pressure, honestly.
A few weeks ago, Becca Jones stole our hearts with her 
Amy/Zapp 
Amy/Fry 
Amazonian/Fry 
Leela/Zapp 
Leela/Fry 
